welcome to my brain

(Like that picture I made? Haha! If you haven't seen the movie The Break Up, that's the picture that's on all the movie posters. Obviously, Thoreau and Emerson were not in it before.)

So, I've been really interested in the relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, so I did a little research. I just looked at a few articles in the JSTOR database- so I know that there are probably millions of other articles out there, and lots of them will probably contest the information I found. It's common knowledge in the field of literary studies that Emerson and Thoreau shared a relationship between the late 1830s and early 1840s, but what I wanted to know is what, exactly, that relationship was like. My own thought, before I looked at these articles, was that Thoreau, being younger, looked up to Emerson, and Emerson thought of Thoreau as a kind of protege- so I thought it was a mutually enjoyable, close relationship.

Interestingly, John Brooks Moore and Robert Sattelmeyer each have very different opinions of this.

About the relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, Moore, in his 1932 article, "Thoreau Rejects Emerson," writes that it was assumed that the two men had a close relationship, because of their similar views and ideas. But, this was not the case.

"A curious witness to the comparative dominance of Thoreau in their relationship is to be found in their journals. There are over sixty important references to Thoreau in Emerson's Journals; while in Thoreau's Journal there are only between twenty and thirty really significant references to Emerson, most of them very brief. Further, it ought to be noted, Thoreau's references to Emerson are often ironic and entirely lack the tone of discipleship."

He goes on to say that Emerson, in his Journal, often quoted something from Thoreau and glowingly commends it. Apparently, Emerson praised and complimented Thoreau often, which caused Thoreau to complain:

"I should value E's. praise more, which is always so discriminating, if there were not some alloy of patronage and and hence of flattery about it..."

Hmm. Interesting. I'm actually not too sure what that means, but it doesn't sound as if Thoreau was that excited about Emerson's continued praises of him. Anyway, Moore's main point is that while Emerson looked at Thoreau with a sort of awe and praise, and Thoreau looks at Emerson as nothing really special. Moore writes that Thoreau did, once, find Emerson fascinating, but that view of him disappeared rapidly as time passed.

OK, so on the other hand, Sattelmeyer, in his 1989 article "When He Became My Enemy: Emerson and Thoreau, 1848-1849," has a completely different, and opposite, view than Moore. Sattelmeyer writes:

"Emerson and Thoreau became seriously estranged from each other in 1850...the impact of their falling out appears to have been more personally devastating to Thoreau, for Emerson was clearly the great companion of his early years, the one on whom he had most staked his intense aspirations for a transcendental friendship."

That's interesting. But what is even more interesting is what Sattelmeyer says about the importance of Emerson to Thoreau:

"For Emerson, on the other hand, Thoreau, though clearly a central figure in the older man's life, was finally only one of several younger friends and proteges who ultimately proved to be personal and professional disappointments to him."

OK. So that's basically the complete opposite of what Moore writes. Moore says that Emerson deeply admired Thoreau and made tons of glowing references to him in his Journal, but Thoreau was the one who was not too enamored with Emerson, and was actually pretty annoyed by him. Sattelmeyer says that Emerson was the one who was annoyed with Thoreau, who he thought was a disappointment and a failure, and that when the two men stopped talking, Thoreau was absolutely devastated because Emerson was, in fact, his BFF.

This whole thing makes me laugh. It's like Emerson and Thoreau had groupies, and the groupies fought (and are still fighting over) who didn't like who. I take that back- I guess that's kind of mean. Some Thoreau or Emerson scholar might stumble upon this blog and get all upset because I called them a groupie. I'm sorry.

Anyway, I think my personal conclusion is that Emerson and Thoreau liked each other, enjoyed each other's company, but when Thoreau got too popular, Emerson got all bitter, couldn't take it and he hit the road. That's what I think. I could be wrong, and I probably need to do more research before I make a bold statement like that, but that's my conclusion from the extremely intriguing research I've done.

As I was reading T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent," I couldn't help but notice how much his views differ from Emerson's. I guess that's because Eliot was considered to be an "anti-Romantic," and Emerson was considered to be a Romantic...so of course they're different. But, those differences are still really interesting.

While Eliot loved tradition, and sees incredible value in being conscious of the past and tradition, Emerson hated tradition and saw it as submitting to authority, and being the opposite of creative (which is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to anyone. He pokes fun at the "umpires of taste," who have knowledge of already admired and esteemed pictures and sculptures- basically, traditionally revered pictures and sculptures. Eliot, on the other hand, pokes fun at the fact that just saying the word "tradition" is commonly perceived as a negative thing. He also says that "the most individual parts of [a poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously." Regarding reading and books, Emerson says that reading "looks backward but not forward" and talks about young men growing up in libraries, reading the classics, and they end up being bookworms instead of "Man Thinking," which is what they should be striving to be. On the other hand, Eliot says: "Someone said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know." Emerson was probably rolling in his grave when he heard that!

One really important distinction, I think, is that while Emerson and Shelley (yes, I'm bringing Shelley into this!) laud the Poet (deserves a capital 'P') and say that the Poet is the "quasi-divine seer," the essence of truth, and who every human should look to in order to see what's beyond this world, Eliot says that the author should be irrelevant. He writes that the life of the poem should be in the poem, not the poet- essentially, he says that a good poem stands alone and the author isn't important. To me, that's the most important distinction between Eliot, the anti-Romantic, and Shelley and Emerson, the Romantics/Transcendentalists (which one were they? I guess I should know this....if you know this, let me know!

So that's what I think. I was thinking that Eliot and Emerson had some similar views on some things, but I couldn't find evidence to back that up. I really did think I found something when I was reading a few days ago, but now I can't find it. Hmm....

Here's a video of Eliot reading "The Waste Land." It's pretty cool to hear his actual voice, reading what is thought of as the most influential poem.

What's better: reading, or writing?

That's kind of a "what came first: the chicken or the egg?" question, because don't you have to learn how to read before you can learn how to write? Hmm...is that how it goes? Not sure. It's tough, because in school, I think we are taught that both reading and writing is important. When I was little, my dad read to me a lot, and when I learned to read, I read a lot, and eventually I became a good writer. I still read a lot, and I've found that because of this, I am able to think critically about the ideas of the books I read, and consequently, I begin to cultivate my own ideas that kind of spin off of those ideas. I think Emerson would say that this is a good thing, and that's what reading should do.

So back to that question. Is it more important to be a voracious reader of books, or to be a skilled writer? To Emerson, and I think most of the Transcendentalists, creation is divine. In "The American Scholar", Emerson says that the "theory of books is noble." He discusses how books are the best type of influence of the past, and how books can inspire the oppressed multitude to open their eyes to Reason and outcry. This made me think that, to Emerson, reading is something to be praised. Then, on the contrary, he writes: "Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst." He refers to the English dramatic poets being "Shakespearized" for years. When we simply read the thoughts of others, and just absorb those thoughts and assume that that's the way things are and accept those ideas and thoughts, that's not creative. Even those English poets that read Shakespeare and actually were inspired to write poetry, they simply regurgitated what Shakespeare did, and basically imitated him. That still isn't being creative.

So, what are books good for, then? To inspire, Emerson writes. What is divine is not reading books- what is divine is creation. Reading an amazing book, or poem, or play, gives us joy and gives us insight into the minds of great thinkers of the past. But reading books and absorbing those ideas should inspire us to create thoughts of our own, and, even better, to write those thoughts down, and in turn, inspire others. We can inspire and be inspired- we can all be connected intellectually. (That is a very Transcendentalist thing to say!) I think maybe this is how reading and writing and being a Poet could actually improve the world. When we read, we can write; when we write, we become divine; we become seers, we become intellectuals- we become, as Emerson would say, "the American Scholar." Well, maybe it isn't that easy, but you know what I'm getting at. We become "Man Thinking," (or should it be Man or Woman Thinking?) and not the bookworm.

In conclusion, I'd say that reading and writing are both equally important. Each has its own function, and I think each is dependent on the other. A writer must also be a reader, and reader must also be a writer.

One of the cool things about college is realizing that things you've studies in different classes can, sometimes, be related, and then you find that you are actually learning something new. I'll explain. In my Literature and the Environment class, I'm reading Thoreau's Walden. And in Literary Criticism, we read "The Poet", by Emerson, for class today. While reading "The Poet", I noticed a lot of similarities between Emerson and Thoreau- so much so, that I am starting to think that the two were not only (obviously) members of the Transcendentalist school, but that they were, in fact, best friends! OK, that might be stretching it a little bit, but what I'm trying to say is that Emerson and Thoreau had extremely similar views and thoughts, as evidenced in their writing. A lot of you might be yawning at this point, because you already knew this, and I'm sure Dr. Powers already knew this, but I didn't! It's a very exciting feeling, because no one explicitly told me that Emerson and Thoreau actually were friends, so I feel as if I discovered something. So if you already knew this, just humor me and follow along. I think I might also do some independent research on the similarities and relationship between Thoreau and Emerson, but that post will come in a few days.

There are a lot of passages from Walden and The Poet that I would like to talk about, but I think that would take a whole lot longer than I anticipated, so I'll just talk about a few things I saw. A main idea that both Emerson and Thoreau discuss is the idea that if people focus on material things, and model their lives around them and worship them, then they will never find joy and truth in the simple, natural beauties of life. Emerson writes: "If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pine woods." Similarly, in Walden, Thoreau writes: "Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind...We worship not the Graces, but Fashion." In another vein, Thoreau says: "...a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper," while Emerson writes, "[The poet's] cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water."OK, so this focus on simplicity and authenticity is, undoubtedly, a prime trait of Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and that could obviously explain the similarities between the writing of Thoreau and Emerson. And I'm sure that is an adequate explanation, but there were so many other similarities in what I read than the few I listed above. So, more on that in my independent research later.

This kid really knows what Transcendalism means.

I tried to think of a better title for this blog post, but I couldn't. So, I guess this will have to do!

I really enjoyed reading the article "What Is Literary Theory?" I guess I enjoyed it because I don't really know anything about literary theory. I probably should, as this is my 5th (yes, my 5th!) year in college, and although I might have actually learned some things about literary theory throughout my college experience so far, I can't really recall anything specific. So this was a new experience for me.
To start, I want to put it out there that I've always had problems understanding literary criticism. I had no idea it was a part of literary theory (am I supposed to capitalize those terms? hmm...) To help me understand the different kinds of literary criticism better, I always thought of the different kinds of critcisms as different lenses. So, in this article, the author talks about how Chinua Achebe, looking through the "postcolonial" lens, says that Conrad's Heart of Darkness "fails to grant full humanity to the Africans it depicts," and that perspective is created from a postcolonial literary theory that presupposes a history of exploitation and racism (straight from the article, but I don't know how to cite that). Kind of like a camera with all different color lenses that you can switch- you can switch to a red lens, and when you look through the viewfinder, everything you see will be red. Switch to a blue lens, and everything you see will be blue. Switch to a feminist critic's lens, and you'll see all the parts a feminist critic would be interested in...that might all sound really elementary to a lot of people in this class, but for me, it's the easiest way to understand literary criticism. And if I'm wrong, PLEASE tell me!

One form of literary criticism I think is really interesting is the one that Charles Augustin Saint Beuve talked about- that a work of literature could be entirely explained and and analyzed in terms of the biography of the author. I can understand this, because I don't see how an author could completely take him/herself out of the literature they are writing. So, I think that examining the life of the author is a valid way to analyze a literary work. I mean, I'm sure Proust's point of view that the "details of the life of the artist are utterly transformed in the work of art" (also taken directly from the article) is also a good point, but I think I need to read more about that to know enough to have an opinion about it.

Anyway, do you think the Author means nothing - that his or her work stands alone in the face of interpretation? I'd like to research more about this.
OK, that's all for now...bye!